Cherry spent a little time reorganizing the cargo and personal belongings in the Thousand Sunny after setting the ship upright in the sand. The current pushing and pulling it this way and that way sent everything that hadn't been tied down everywhere, making a huge mess on the interior.
'Oh, I probably need to grab some food, too. If I let Luffy go hungry, he might disrupt the local ecosystem or something,' Cherry thought to herself, stuffing the more perishable foods into her pockets that would likely go bad if left here too long anyways.
It was a shame that Cherry couldn't squeeze such a large object like the ship into one of her armor's pockets. The pockets could stretch quite wide, but not anywhere close to wide enough for something like that. Perhaps it would be possible if she could awaken the devil fruit, but Cherry had even less of an idea of how to do that than she did for Luffy's fruit, assuming it was even possible.
Suddenly, Cherry felt vibrations from below like heavy foot falls approaching the ship and growls and roars could be heard outside. Cherry sighed and made her way up top.
She peered over the edge of the railing to see Luffy watching a pair of oversized beasts fighting each other with their lives on the line. One was an odd looking dog or cat-like creature with polka dotted yellow fur, and the other was a red faced and white furred baboon holding a sword of proportional size.
Cherry narrowed her eyes at the sword. She wondered if it was coincidence that the baboon had a weapon that was properly sized for it or if it was affiliated with a group who had deliberately armed it; like the Beast Pirates, perhaps?
"Who's winning?" Cherry called down to Luffy.
"I don't know, they both suck at fighting," Luffy replied.
The ugly yellow thing and the baboon both looked at Luffy as if they were offended.
"You got a problem?" Luffy asked.
Both creature's felt a shiver down their spines, then turned their attention back to killing one another.
Cherry's sensitive hearing picked up a conversation happening inside the forest.
"Let me go! Give me back my rice!" the tiny, unmistakable voice of a child cried.
"Shut yer yapper! I overheard you say you were a servant of the Kozuki clan. That means I can do whatever I want, like sell you off to the red light district or throw you in prison if nobody wants to buy an ugly little girl like you! Ha!" the voice of a man who didn't know he was dead growled back.
"Look, there's a ship on the beach! I'll call it in!" another dead man said.
Cherry's eyes sharpened in their direction before turning back to let Luffy know someone is coming.
The two men broke out of the tree line shortly after, riding atop some kind of dinosaur. The second dead man spoke, "Huh? That's weird, the den den mushi won't wake up."
"Whatever, we'll just call it in afterwards-" the first dead man began, before he was cut off by Luffy's fist to the face.
"You-!" the second dead man couldn't finish his words as he heard his own spine crunch whilst his point of view twisted backwards. His final sight before darkness overtook him was cold, red eyes.
Cherry grabbed a squirming sack from the man's side and leapt off of the dinosaur's back. The dinosaur looked around in confusion, seeing that neither of its riders were in any state to give it commands.
"What's that, Cherry? A bag of meat?" Luffy asked.
Cherry untied the bag, allowing a purple haired little girl to poke her head out. "Well, I guess it's technically filled with meat…"
"Ahhhhh?! I surrender, don't eat me!" the little girl screamed and hastily shot her hands high over her head.
"Hahahaha! She thinks you're going to eat her!" Luffy laughed. Unbeknownst to him, the sword wielding baboon was sneaking up behind him with its blade reared in preparation to decapitate him.
The little girl, seeing that neither of her new captors were reacting to the danger, made a decision that might spare her the grisly fate of being cannibalized, in one way or another. She placed a hands against her cheek, forming a circle with her index finger and thumb, and pulled something like a glowing dango free. She then chucked it at the baboon, landing straight in its mouth.
The baboon paused, swallowed, then the aggression on its face faded in favor of a smile as it lowered its sword.
"I-I saved your life, just now! S-so-!" the little girl stuttered.
"No you didn't," Luffy denied instantly.
"So shameless!" the little girl was shocked.
"We aren't going to eat you, girl. We rescued you from those beasts in human clothing," Cherry said.
"Huh?" the girl blinked, then went very red in the face from embarrassment. "You're right!"
She immediately went into a dogeza, half burying her head in the sand, and started to thank Cherry and Luffy profusely.
"Cut it out," Cherry picked her up by the scruff and settled her back on her feet. "Anyone who calls themselves an adult should help a child in need. You should learn to be a little more shameless, like my captain here."
The girl looked unsure.
"Hey, are we in Wano?" Luffy asked.
"Oh, yes! We're in the Kuri region of the land of Wano!" she confirmed quickly. "I was heading home when those bad guys stole my rice! I got angry and… said something that was against the law…"
The girl looked up at Luffy to say something else, but paused when she saw Cherry a little ways away hurl the two Beast Pirates into the water. She thought 'That lady is vicious…'
*GURGLE*
Luffy's stomach chose that moment to growl something fierce.
"Let me repay you for saving me! I can cook you a meal!" the girl insisted, seizing on the opportunity that presented itself.
"Really?! That's great!" Luffy was quite happy to accept the offer.
"Let's move the ship somewhere out of sight, Luffy. We don't want more of those losers poking around our ship," Cherry said.
Between the two of them, it was easy enough to get the ship back into the water and into a hidden cove in a nearby cliff face.
"So what's your name, kid?" Cherry asked, as they started walking into the forest.
"My name is Tama!" Tama said.
"I'm Luffy! I'm going to be the king of the pirates!" Luffy declared.
"I'm Cherry," Cherry said, then she thought of something and added, "I'm going to live forever."
"F-forever?!" Tama said. "That's.. Quite a long time, isn't it?"
"Sure, but the world changes quicker than you'd think. I don't reckon I'll get bored of it any time soon," Cherry said.
Cherry looked at the bag of rice that Tama was carrying. "By the way, is rice expensive here or do you live alone?"
"Oh, yes, rice is very expensive! I live with my master, but this is enough for us," Tama said.
"Is that so?" Cherry said. It was obvious to her eyes that Tama was malnourished, so she doubted that it was truly enough. She thought darkly, 'Her master better not be a fatso, or I'll help him lose some weight…'